Pulitzer Prep
by Braids21
Summary: [eventual slash] "Blink shifted nervously. He had always hated the 'meeting new people' part of changing schools." Ch 1 up! (I finally updated)
1. Prologue

**PULITZER PREP – Prologue**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Newsies. Disney does.

**A/N**: New fic from moi! Enjoy! :)

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Ryan Matthews angrily stared out the window of his family's car. They had been driving for well over three hours already, and he was uncomfortable. 

But that wasn't the only reason why he was angry. The reason was that he was being sent to yet another boarding school. See, Ryan was what you would call a 'military brat'; His father is an officer in the U.S. Navy. In his eleven years of schooling, he had already been to ten different schools, six of them being boarding schools. Every time Ryan finally got comfortable in a school, his father would get reassigned and he had to leave.

You'd think that going to a boarding school would eliminate that problem. But no, Ryan's parents are anal like that and always wanted Ryan to be at least be at a school in the same state or country his father was stationed in. That meant going to school in seven different states and three countries.

This time, his dad was stationed in New Jersey. The school he was being sent to, Pulitzer Prep, was halfway across the country from the last school he attended in Texas, and Ryan was not pleased at all.

Finally, the family car slowly pulled to a stop in front of Pulitzer Prep's main building.

"Well, here we are! And it looks just like the brochure!" Mrs. Matthews said, way too perky for Ryan's taste.

"Oh joy," Ryan answered, readjusting the eye patch he wore over his blind left eye, and exited the car.

"Ryan, at least try to be happy." Mr. Matthews said.

"Happy? You want me to be happy? Why should I be happy when I have to change schools in the middle of my junior year when you promised me that once I hit high school, I could stay in one school? Has that promise been kept? NO. This is the THIRD school since freshman year."

His father sighed. "I know I promised. But I can't help that I was sent from Paris to Texas. I didn't want you to stay in France for school."

"Why couldn't I have stayed in Texas then?"

"Because we want to be close to you, honey," His mother chipped in, and Ryan groaned.

"Ry, the Navy promised me that I'd be here for at least two years. That gives you enough time to finish high school here."

"If that promise is broken Dad, I will hate you forever."

"I know. That's why, as long as we stay in the U.S., no matter where we move to, you can finish here."

"Thank you."

"Are you two finished? We're already fifteen minutes late for our appointment with your new principal." Mrs. Matthews said, looking at her watch.

"What fun." Ryan said under his breath.

"Ryan…" His mom warned.

"What fun!" He repeated, in an obviously fake cheerfulness.

"That's better." Ryan just rolled his eyes.

The family started the walk up to the door of the main hall. Unfortunately for them, the bell signaling the end of the school day rang, and students began pouring out of the doors.

A few looked at Ryan weird, giving him the once over, for it was obvious he was a transfer. Ryan averted his eye, suddenly self-conscious about his eye patch.

He looked behind him and saw his parents slowly meandering their way up the path, and inwardly groaned. It was bad enough he was here, but the first time people saw him, it _had_ to be with his parents!

"Will you two please hurry up? It's_ freezing _out here!" Ryan quietly called to his parents.

"We're coming Ryan. We're just admiring the view." Ryan rolled his eyes and groaned at his mother's comment and walked inside the building.

Once inside, he was greeted with the sight of numerous students sill inside, just hanging out in the lobby. Ryan wanted to die as soon as his mother opened her mouth, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Oh Ry – Look at all the kids! Why don't you ask one of them where to find the office?"

One group imparticular looked right at Ryan, then back to their group and cracked up, pointing and laughing in his general direction.

Ryan turned toward his mother and said through clenched teeth, "I think we can find the office _fine _without them." He stalked off toward one end of the hall, his parents following behind him. Thankfully, he chose the right way, for as soon as he turned the corner, the office was in full view.

The Matthews entered the office and was greeted by one of the secretaries who informed them that the principal would be right with them. After waiting (quite impatiently on Ryan's part) a while, a lady with fiery red hair wearing a pink suit that clashed horribly with her hair greeted them.

"Welcome! You must be the Matthews's. Come on in to my office. I'm Medda Larkson, by the way, but everyone just calls me Medda," She said, ushering them into a back room. "Sit! Sit! Make yourself at home!"

They obliged, and Ryan of course slouched in the chair and sulked. He didn't sulk for long, for Medda's obnoxiously perky voice made him jump.

"And you must be Ryan! You're going to love it here at Pulitzer Prep." She turned toward his parents and asked them, "Has Ryan ever been in a boarding school before?"

Ryan snorted and muttered under his breath, "Only like, twenty."

"Ryan," His mother hissed, "Behave."

Medda looked oddly amused by this. "So I'm guessing he was then?"

Mr. Matthews nodded. "I'm in the Navy, and have moved around a lot. He's been in a boarding school since fourth grade."

"Great! So he knows the basic rules. But here at Pulitzer Prep, we have some other rules as well…"

To Ryan, Medda's voice quickly turned into something that resembled Charlie Brown's teacher. "Mwah mwah, mwah mwah, mwah mwah."

Ryan basically stared off into space as Medda rambled on and on about all the dorm rules they had. He found it funny that his parents were listening so intently to that bullshit. Nobody ever paid attention to the dumb rules anyway.

Ryan was soon snapped out of his daze. "Ryan. RYAN!" Mrs. Matthews said, lightly slapping her son's arm.

"Huh? What? Oh, um… Sorry."

"I was just asking you, Ryan, if you would like to know your roommates and go set up your dorm," Medda said, almost smirking, for she knew he hadn't heard anything she had said beforehand.

"Oh… yeah."

"Well, you're in a triple, so it's a slightly larger room. Your roommates are Daniel Meyers and Kyle Harrison." She handed him a key and a piece of paper. "Here's your key and information about your room and the rules. You are in room Three-Eleven in Brown Hall, the upperclassmen dorm."

"Um… Thanks."

"Okay, I'm done here. Go on, scoot! Off to your dorm!"

The three of them thanked Medda and walked back out to the family care.

Ryan popped the trunk and grabbed his luggage – two duffel bags. He turned around to see his mother eagerly waiting.

"NO. You two are _not_ coming with me."

"But Ryan –"

"It's alright, honey. I think we've embarrassed him enough."

"Thanks, Dad."

"Bye, Ryan." Mrs. Matthews choked back a sob.

"Oh god, Mom. Don't be so melodramatic."

"Ryan…" His dad said.

"Geeze, sorry. Now can you leave? Please?"

"Yes, yes, we're leaving Ryan."

They exchanged hugs (his mother fully breaking into hysterics) before his parents entered the car and drove off.

"_This better be the last time we do that before college_," Ryan thought as he watched them leave the campus.

Once the car was out of sight, Ryan sighed, shifted a duffel bag to the opposite shoulder, and walked off toward Brown Hall.

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**A/N**: Yesh. I like this fic. 

I know, I promised myself I wouldn't have two multi-chaptered fics going at the same time, but… I kinda have a bit of writer's block on TJORH. It will be finished, I promise.

Oh, to anyone who was confused… Ryan is Blink. You'll find out who his roommates are next chapter!

This will eventually be slash too… and the boarding school plot was taken from my dead story Clear Water Academy. It was het fic, and I wanted to write a slashy version, so this is it! But really no plot details are coming from that. Just the boarding school part.

Okies, enough of me rambling. REVIEW!

**.Braids.**


	2. Ch 1 Meet the Roomies

**Pulitzer Prep Chapter 1- Meet the Roomies**

Disclaimer: Don't own newsies, but I do own Connor.

A/N: sorry for the wait... I've been busy! Enjoy! :)

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Brown Hall was a four-story old brick building. As Ryan approached the dorm, he was reminded how much boarding school dorms looked alike. His last school's dorm was also old and made of brick. That fact just made Ryan not want to be there even more. 

Students were all around the campus, since classes had let out already. For the first time, Ryan noticed that they wore uniforms. The guys had khaki dress pants, white button-down shirts, blue blazers, and a tie. The girls wore the same, except they has skirts and no ties. Ryan smiled thankfully at the fact that the uniforms were blue instead of a poop-brown color, as he old school's uniforms were.

Ryan was about to head inside the dorm, but stopped when he heard someone.

"Hey kid, you're that new guy, right? The one whose 'mommy' wanted you to talk to us?"

Ryan spun around quickly, causing one of his duffel bags to slip off his shoulder and drop onto the ground. Laughter filled his ears. His face growing hot, he forced himself to face whoever it was.

He immediately recognized the group of five people, three guys and two girls, as they were the ones who laughed at him before. The one in the middle, obviously their leader and the one who called to him, was tall and had dirty blonde hair that hung in his eyes. The other four stood in a semi-circle around him.

Finally finding his voice, Ryan shot back, "Yeah, and who might you be?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized how stupid they sounded, and winced.

"Oh, you want to be polite and get to know me? Oh how _cute_!" The leader"s posse cracked up at that, as if that was the funniest thing they had ever heard.

"No, I just want to be able to put a name to the face of the biggest asshole there is." Ryan retorted, surprising himself by how calm he was.

The group echoed with 'Oohhs!' Their leader, obviously loathing Ryan more than ever, finally answered. "All right. You want my name? It's Connor."

"Connor... hmm... It suits you. Great name for an asshole!" Ryan contemplated, smirking right in Connor's face.

Connor's friends had to hold him back, for he was ready to jump at Ryan any second. "You better get the fuck away from me, unless you want me to beat the crap outta you."

Ryan snorted. "Sure. Like you can do that." He bend down to pick up his bag, and then continued. "Oh, and by the way, Ryan Matthews, at your service." He bowed in fake servitude, then spun around and walked toward the dorm door. But not before muttering a few choice curse words to Connor under his breath, just loud enough for Connor to hear. As Ryan heard the cheers and groans coming from behind him, he smiled. Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad.

As Ryan entered Brown Hall, he was greeted with loud music, laughter, and many teens. He glanced around to check out his surroundings. To his left and right were halls of dorm rooms. Straight ahead was what looked like a common hangout room. A few guys were playing pool, and a group of friends were sprawled out over the couch and the ground, obviously watching a movie. An elevator and a stairwell were adjacent to the common room. He checked him room assignment again, and headed up the two flights of stairs to the third floor.

Once he got to his floor, he knew to go to the right, since there were numerous signs making it known that the left side was girls and the right was guys. He finally found his room, number three-eleven, at the end of the hall. He heard a TV blaring from inside, the channels constantly being changed.

Ryan took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Two of the beds were bunked against the left side of the room, and the third, obviously unused, was pushed into a corner and apparently used as extra self space, since there was clothes and books all over the comforter. The TV was dead center against the back wall, and the desks were across from the bunk beds.

One of his roommates was on the top bunk, propped up by his elbow, flipping channels and talking on his cell phone to someone. Ryan couldn't really tell what he looked like yet, and he hadn't noticed Ryan was standing there. Ryan shut the door, and dropped his duffel bags to try to get the guy's attention. It sort of worked.

"Hey Skittery," the guy called out, not talking his attention away from the TV or his phone conversation.

Ryan coughed awkwardly. Uh... who's Skittery?"

Bunk-bed guy's head whipped around. After glancing at Ryan and his bags, he cursed. "Shit! New roommate, right?" Ryan nodded. The guy held up his index finger, indicating 'one minute' and went back to his phone conversation. "Race, I gotta go. New roomie's here. I _know_. I know. Me too. Bye!" He tossed his phone onto his bed, clicked off the TV, and jumped down. "Daniel Meyers. Sorry, I completely forgot you were coming today."

"Ryan Matthews. Nice to meet ya, Dan." They shook. Daniel had brown, curly hair, big brown eyes, and tan skin. Ryan found it hard not to stare at him, as Daniel's uniform shirt was unbuttoned, and his well-toned abs were clearly visibly.

"You too, Ryan. Oh, and my nickname is Mush around my friends. We all have one that we've gotten over the years."

Ryan eyed him oddly. "Mush?"

Daniel laughed. "_Long_ story. You'll learn it eventually, though."

"Ah." Ryan replied, and then shifted nervously, not knowing what to say. He had always hated the 'meeting new people' part of changing school.

Mush sensed this and tried to expand their conversation. "So, where'd you move from?"

"Texas."

"Wow, that?s far from home."

"It wasn't my home. I don't really have a 'home' since we've moved so many times I need my toes to count them." Ryan answered bitterly.

Mush, guessing right that that was a tough topic, changed the subject to asked Ryan what he liked to do for fun. That got them going.

Ryan told him he liked to play the guitar, listen to music, and watch TV (like mostly every other guy.) Mush, on the other hand, loved theatre and singing.

They eventually came to the topic of friends and roommates.

"Oh, you might want to know who your other roomie is, right?"

Ryan laughed and nodded. "Let me guess- his nickname is Skittery."

Mush stared at Ryan for a second. "How did you know that?"

"You called me that when I first walked in."

"Oh yeah, I did. He's probably on the girls' side, in his girlfriend's room." Mush laughed and pointed to a collage on one of their walls of pictures. "This is the 'Friends Mix' as we like to call it. Now, there aren't many good pictures of this is Skittery."

From what Ryan could decipher of the picture, Skittery was tall with curly-ish brown hair.

Mush went on to name all the people in the collage. One picture Ryan found intriguing was one of Mush and the kid Mush called 'Race' (Ryan guessed the same guy he was talking to on the cell) hugging.

Ryan was about to ask about it, but Mush interrupted. "Shit! It's four o'clock!" Mush began rushing around the room apparently looking something.

"Yeah, so?"

"I'm supposed to be a play practice! Ah, there's my phone. Uh, sorry for running out on you like this. Skittery should be back soon. And you can just throw all the shit on your bed onto Skittery's or mine. Bye!" And he left.

Now that Mush was gone, Ryan got his first real look at the room. It was extremely mess, but he didn't expect it to be clean. He looked closer at all the posters on the walls. Behind the bottom bunk (Skittery's, Ryan suspected, since Mush was sitting on the top one before), was a poster of a half-naked Victoria's Secret model and various other scantily clad women as well. He looked behind the top bunk and wasn't surprised to see posters of different musical logos. That further pushed his theory that Mush was gay. Ryan always thought he had excellent 'gay-dar' as they call it. He'd have to ask Skittery about it once he met the guy.

Ryan shrugged, and started unpacking his clothes. He was almost finished when he heard the door open. In walked his other room, backwards, as he was finishing up a conversation with people out in the hall.

"...Tonight, Snitch's room. Got it. Bye, guys." He shut the door and turned around. Ryan saw that the picture was a pretty clear description of him, as he was tall and had unruly curly brown hair and hazel eyes. The guy saw Ryan, and his eyes went wide. "Who are you? ...Oh shit, don't answer that. You're our new roommate, right?" Ryan laughed and nodded. "I'm Kyle Harrison. But you can call me-"

"Skittery, I know." Ryan cut him off.

"Wait, how?"

"Mush told me."

"Oh... and you are?"

"Sorry, Ryan Matthews. No nickname... yet."

"Nice to meetcha. Um... not to sound mean, but what's with the eye patch?"

Ryan's hand automatically fingered his patch. "Oh, this. I'm blind in my left eyes, and to not freak out people by the way it looks, I wear this."

"I see. So, you already met Mush, huh?"

"Yeah... he's uh, he'spretty cool."Ryan glanced around the room, and his eyes fell upon the 'Friends Mix' picture of Mush and Race, and he felt compelled to ask. "Is Mush, uh.. um..."

"Gay?" Skittery supplied, and Ryan nodded. "Duh. How'd ya guess?"

"The posters. And that picture of him and Race, combined with the fact that I heard them talking on the phone when I first walked in."

"Oh, you heard some of their phone convos? Oh, you poor thing!" Skittery laughed.

"I didn't really hear that much, but I heard enough to originally think he was talking to his girlfriend... or rather, boyfriend."

Skittery laughed again, but abruptly stopped. "You're not, like, freaked out by that are you?"

"Nah, I don't mind." Ryan said, adding silently 'I'm the same way.' Ryan wanted so much to say it, knowing full-well now that he'd be accepted, but he decided against it, for he wanted everyone to get to know him first before he came out.

"Mind if I turn on some music?" Skittery asked.

"What do ya got?"

Skittery flipped through his CD rack, naming bands. "Uh... Get Up Kids, Spitalfield, Dashboard, Early November, Yellowcard, Sugarcult, Copeland, Juliana Theory, The Starting Line, Taking Back Sunday... basically anything of that nature."

"You like emo? Me too. Put on Spitalfield."

Skittery laughed, and put the CD into the stereo. The opening chords of 'Kill the Drama' filled the room, as Ryan went back to unpacking. He was interrupted by Skittery, again.

"So, is there anything else you want to know?"

Ryan looked up and said, "Favorite movie?"

"Anything Mel Brooks. Especially Spaceballs and Men in Tights."

"Hilarious movies! Mine's The Matrix. Just the first one though... The sequels sucked ass."

Skittery laughed, and agreed. "Anything else?"

Ryan thought for a moment. "Oh yeah... how come you live in a triple, but don't have a third roommate?"

Skittery smiled. "Well, at the beginning of the year we did. But, he kinda... left about a month into school."

"Why? What did you do to him?"

"I did nothing. Mush on the other hand..."

"Ah... I see."Ryan replied, laughing.

"I guess we didn't warn him. But you better not do that, 'cause I'm warning you now. Mush and Race like to make out A LOT. In public and in here. So, get used to it."

"Oh, don't worry. Doesn't bother me."

"Good." He checked his watch. Five-thirty. "Hey, wanna go grab a bite to eat?"

"Sure."

"Grab you coat, 'cause it's freezing outside, and I'll introduce you to everyone."

Ryan thoughts turned to Conner, and prayed his wasn't part of their group of friends. "Wait... do you happen to know a guy named Connor?"

"McGraw? Yeah, hes such a dick. Why?"

Ryan signed in relief. "Well, I kinda... mouthed off him because well... he was being dick-y to me."

Skittery stared at him in disbelief. "_You _mouthed off _Connor?_ And you're still alive?"

Ryan laughed, and shrugged. "I guess."

Skittery laughed with him. "Oh well? Come on, let's go get some dinner."

Ryan smiled as he followed Skittery out of the room. Maybe this place _could_ grow on him.

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**A/N**: wow... over a month without an update... I bad...But there is a reason- marching season! Now that it's over, I can do this! 

..or not, cuz Winter guard starts soon, and then it's Play season (I actually made it! lol)

So, updates will be whenever I get around to it!

Oh, and to all of you who gave me OCs, they will be in next chapter!

**EDIT:** If there is any question marks where a quote or apostrophe is supposed to be, I'm sorry. I uploaded it onto ffn from word, and every single one of them turned into a question mark. I went through the entire chapter, but just to cover human error, sorry! FFN did it!

No time for big shout outs... but thanks to **Scout73, Oxymoronic Alliteration, Singin'-newsies-goil, Cyanne 76, Erin Go Bragh, Air, Saturday, Chaos89, Studentnumber24601, Lily, Princess of Mirrors, Strawberri Shake, Madison Square, and Marbles. **I love you all!

And now, time to review!

**-Braids-**


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